Quote

I guess the idea of doing albums in their entirety, in sequence, appeals to people. I guess it's the memory of being able to hear the music in the way it was originally presented.

Once I'd chosen the songs, it seemed like it would just be a question then of recording them. But it's a case of trying to re-invent the songs; taking them in different directions.

There's this notion that allows people to create their own collection of songs, so it rewrites what a song is. They may only want 10 seconds of something, or they may only want this particular song, or they want this group of songs. It becomes much more user-controlled.

You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.

The thing that I've always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing.

If part of the purpose of making an album is to get some radio play, then you might as well think about that. But that's not really how we picked the songs.

Those albums are so important to me because, for the first time, I was making my own music, paying for it, finding strengths in it, and going through the process of finding the right music for the record.

When we were making vinyl records we had a lot of time limitations for each record so songs were left off for a number of reasons. Now, with CDs, much more music can be included.

I realized if I'm not really making an album, I don't have to be concerned about things like stylistic consistency, pacing, a coherent mood. All that stuff goes out the window.